I have often wondered how a man could be called a man after God’s on heart.
And how it is that God can give a testimonial about how He (God) has searched The Whole earth and found this person.
For a man to be found in this position must have meant David was doing something really exceptional that the creator of the universe liked.
A spiritual father of mine once said in order to please God you must find out what He likes and try with all your being to do those things, the converse should also be done ( stay far from any and everything that The LORD dislikes)
Today I want to share with you one of the mysteries why David was a man after God’s on heart.
Let’s start our journey by looking at what God requires as far as loving him is concerned. I have discovered that when it comes to what God likes He gives us hints and most of the time He is explicit about what is required. Let’s look at one instance where the Lord was explicit and concise with the requirements for Loving Him.
“Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul “
Deuteronomy 10:12
In Matthew 22:34-39 GNT, The Bible says;
“When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they came together, and one of them, a teacher of the Law, tried to trap him with a question. “Teacher,” he asked, “which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’”
I believe many of you reading this post have read or seen or heard about this scripture at some point in your life. But you see very often we read the scriptures and leave it at that without searching to find revelation.
From the discourse above, the lawyer came asking a very important question that pertained to how to relate with God. He thought he was tricking Jesus but how fortunate for us, because Jesus revealed to us the greatest relationship mystery of the Kingdom of God.
Starting from what Jesus said, because truthfully that is where this kingdom mystery is revealed.
Jesus said “ Thou shall Love the Lord your God
1. With all your heart
2. With all your soul
3. And with all your mind
4. And love your neighbour as yourself.
I believe many of us have at one point in our lives sang love songs to God declaring our unending love for Him, sometimes with tears in our eyes. Oh boy! What an awesome feeling that brings.
The subject of love always has an object of love and there is the giver of the love. For God (the Giver) so loved the world (The object of love) that he gave (action leading to sacrifice) His Only Begotten Son(The Sacrifice)… John 3:16
Love both as a noun and verb has to do with great affection for someone or something. Simply put a great interest and pleasure in someone or something.
You see loving the Lord Your God requires more than emotionally expressive words. To love the Lord your God requires knowing the object of your love, the pursuit of love is hinged on relationship. To know God involves having a revelation of who He is. Hebrews 11:6b Anyone that comes to God must believe/know that He is…
Believing that who God is depends on your revelation of who He is.
A few years ago while in church during a time of worship I realized there were some congregants sitting and on their phones while others were standing with lifted hands praising God. The scene disturbed me quite a bit, so on the drive home I was asking God in my heart why some of His children are some way. I had passengers in my car so all this was going on in my heart. Immediately after asking the question the Lord spoke and said “YOUR REVELATION OF WHO GOD IS DETERMINES YOUR WORSHIP”. This made me fear God the more, reason being until you know the object of your love and worship, your love is misplaced. In order to love someone requires you knowing them. Loving God involves effort in doing what pleases Him, it also requires staying far away from things that displease Him. Love requires effort, it requires looking beyond oneself.
There are some who have spectacular experiences as far as revelations about God are concerned, but for the average person who has not had any encounters and is seeking to know God, the only source of reference for God (His nature, His attributes, His words, his actions etc) is His Word, the Bible. It is required of creation to love the Lord our God, loving requires knowing, knowing requires seeking, and those that seek God find Him, love is always directed towards an object of love.
Let us look at what it means to love the Lord with all our hearts. Quite often when we love someone there is this feeling of always wanting to talk to them, and be around them, always trying to do things that make the object of our love happy. For some it’s a real emotional journey with a feeling that only those who have been in love can explain 😀
Let us look at this scripture which I believe shows the basic requirements to loving God:
Deuteronomy 11:1 “You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments.
The proof of your love for God is in keeping His Charge (His instructions). If you claim to love someone openly but you disregard their instructions and do the opposite of what they like then you don’t really love them like you claim. If outwardly we declare oh! I love you Lord, and do what he doesn’t like, where is our love?
The primary test for our love for God is in obeying His instructions and having proper respect for the things that He likes and dislikes.
The proof of your love for God is in keeping His statutes. The statues of God are law. The things decreed by God are law which we need to have a proper respect for. The subversion of any institution or decree by the Lord Almighty is a breach and a show of lack of proper respect for Him.
The proof of our love for God is in the regarding His Ordinances. The God of the Bible has a way of doing things, The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob …. and now of Ron does not change, His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are highly exalted above ours. We cannot expect the same results the people of old got by doing things differently. He said I AM THE LORD and I CHANGE NOT.
The proof of our love for God is in obeying His commandments. Obeying commandments and instructions is hard work and often requires a conscious attempt to obey. Our love is tested each time the instructions of the Lord are concerned. A few years back I was in between jobs and my bank accounts were empty, I was strategizing my movement and eating and living by Accra plan😂😂😂. As a bachelor then, anything that came in was for sustenance. Someone gave me GHC50 as a gift and I had the money in my wallet as I went for a Sunday evening service. During the service as my custom is I like to worship God and say thanks, while singing some love songs to Him. I believe I had said thanks to God for the gift of GHC50 that night. While the preaching was ongoing I heard the LORD say to me “GIVE ME THE GHC50 IN YOUR WALLET”
This, dear reader, was the first test of my love for God. Imagine all the stews I can make with that GHC50, oh like my the fave corned beef stew and spaghetti? But you see I had been fasting and praying for months for God to show me mercy and take me to my next appointed place. And God had heard my prayer and had spoken from eternity into time to test and prove my Love for Him.
Deuteronomy 13:3b
“…for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul…”
I obeyed the voice of God instantly when He spoke, I took my precious GHC50 put it in an envelope and got up to drop it on the altar. Now this is the amazing part. I didn’t realize that the GHC50 I had was my sacrifice, I didn’t realize that by putting it in an envelope I was packaging it, I didn’t realize that in dropping it on the altar, I was presenting an acceptable sacrifice as a proof of my love because I obeyed the voice of the Lord. Immediately the envelope touched the altar the preacher stopped preaching and came straight to me and Said “God said to tell you that for being obedient I will settle you with a job and that multi nationals will come looking for you”. I said Amen. In three weeks I had four recruitment agencies from four countries informing me of a position available in a company starting in Ghana. Long and short of it is that God settled me and the salary was exactly 💯 fold of what God had required.
Deuteronomy 19:9
If you carefully observe all this commandment which I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in His ways always—then you shall add three more cities for yourself, besides these three.
Lessons I learned from that experience were that whatever you have that cannot sustain you is a seed or sacrifice, give it to God. Secondly obedience to the instructions of God guarantees hundred fold blessings. Thirdly the outcome of every test from God if passed is glorious.
Shalom; Peace and Life to you!!!
Pastor Ron Chiarelli
Virtuous Living 